THE CONCLUDING LETTER.

DEAR SIR,

[H

HAVE now finished my reply to your animadverfions on my Hiftory, omitting nothing that I think to be of any confequence to your argument. If you should think that I have overlooked any thing material, and please to point it out to me, I will answer it as explicitly as I can: for I hope that this will only be the beginning of our corref pondence on the subject, as I would gladly discuss it with you in the fullest manner.

I only wish for your own fake, and for the more advantageous investigation of the truth, that you would drop that sarcastic manner of writing, which is fo confpicuous in the greater part of your performance, and I should think peculiarly improper for the occafion on which it was compofed. That mode of writing is also inconfiftent with the compliments you sometimes pay me, unless you meant them to be ironical also.

Some of those compliments are, I think, rather imprudent, and unfavourable to your purpose. "In "philofophical fubjects," you fay, p. 29, "Dr. "Priestley would be the last to reason from principles affumed without proof. But in divinity and "ecclefiaftscal hiftory, he expects that his own af"sertion, or that of writers of his own persuasion, " however

"however uninformed or prejudiced, fhould pafs "with the whole chriftian world for proof of the "boldest affumptions."

You should, indeed Sir, be cautious how you lay these things before your readers; because it is very poffible that they may draw a very different conclufion from them; and think that, if I have been fo cautious, and fo fuccessful in the investigation of truth in one province, I may, having the fame talents, make the fame fuccefsful application of them in other provinces. For the fame mental habits, generally accompany the fame men, in every scene of life, and in every mode of exertion. Your readers, therefore, may think it very improbable that a work written with fo much care and attention, by fuch a person as you describe me to be, should deserve the character which you give of mine. "No work," you fay, p. 66, "was ever "fent abroad under the title of history, containing "lefs of truth than his, in proportion to its vo"lume." The paffages which I have quoted, p. 4, 11, 14, and 89, are grofs and coarfe infults; but they affect yourself only, and not me. This is more extraordinary, as in other parts of your work, you write with great candour and liberality. Your conclufion I particularly admire. My addrefs to you on the subject of neceffity was uniformly respectful.

It was particularly illiberal in you, and what I am willing to hope you will never repeat, to use the term conventicle, p. 28, in fpeaking of the places

of

of public worship, in which I and Mr. Lindsey officiate. Would not that contemptuous appellation have applied equally well to the focieties of the primitive chriftians, or to thofe of all the diffenters from the church of Rome before the reformation? And what is it that has given your places of public worship a more honourable title, but the fanction of the civil powers, with which my religion never had any alliance. I glory in such independence, and approbrium.

By conventicle is ufually meant an unlawful affembly. But fince the late act of parliament in favour of Diffenters, our places of worship are as legal as yours. The only difference between them is, that ours are not fupported by the wealth of the ftate, as yours are; fo that I am unjustly compelled to contribute to your maintenance, while you, instead of paying any thing towards mine, infult me for it. Our meeting houses are equally known to the laws, and protected by them. If by conventicles you meant nothing more than a term of reproach, the good manners of the present age ought to have protected them from fuch an infult.

If your pride, as a churchman, p. 71, and the contemptuous airs you give yourself with respect to diffenters, be founded on the idea of your being a member of a great establishment; pray, Sir, what is your church establishment in this country? It is a thing of yesterday, compared to the far more ancient, and venerable church of Rome, whose mem

bers

bers confider you as a fchifmatic and a fetary, as much as myself. If, on the contrary, you boast of your feparation from the church of Rome, that mother of harlots and abominations, confider that the community of chriftians to which I belong, is feveral removes farther from her than yours, and is therefore less likely to be one of thofe harlots, of which fhe is the mother.

On any confideration, therefore, I think that a ftyle of greater modesty would have become you better. The time is approaching that will try every man's work, what it is, and if we learn the pure, faith of the gospel, and our lives be conformable to it, it will not then be inquired whether we learned it in a church or a conventicle; in a church, fuch as you have accefs to, and from which I am excluded, or in fuch conventicles as the apoftles were contented with.

As you strongly and repeatedly recommend the writings of Bishop Bull, with which, I own, I was but little acquainted, I have been induced to purchafe them; and having looked pretty carefully through them, I find they have been the chief storehouse of weapons to yourself and others. Having found, therefore, where your great ftrength lies, I cannot help wishing that you would publish the whole of your great champion's works in English, and thus put forth all your ftrength at once. It would give me fincere pleasure to see you do this, and at the fame time to avow yourself their defender.

As

As you rank yourself, p. 5, among "thofe "whom the indulgence of providence has released "from the more laborious offices of the priest"hood*, to whom your more occupied brethren "have a right to look up for fupport and fuccour "in the common caufe," this may he one of the " fervices," to which "you ftand peculiarly engaged," as well as to answer my History of the Corruptions of Chriftianity. "It is you say for them" (speaking of those among whom you rank yourself) "to stand forth the champions of the common "faith, and the advocates of their order. It is for "them to wipe off the afperfions injuriously caft upon the fons of the establishment, as uninformed "in the true grounds of the doctrine which they "teach, or infincere in their belief of it. To this duty they are indifpenfably obliged by their providential exemption from work of a harder "kind. It is the proper business of the station "which is allotted them in Chrift's houfhold. And "deep will be their fhame, and infupportable "their punishment, if in the great day of reckon"ing it fhould appear, that they have received "the wages of a fervice which hath never been performed."

I am glad, Sir, to find that you have so just a fense of the important duties of your elevated fitua

I find no trace of any chriftian priesthood in the New Teftament, except what belongs to all chriftians, who are figuratively tiled Kings

and Priefs unto God.

I

tion;

L